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25 Oct 2010, 02:04

“Some experts maintain that students learn best in a highly structured environment, one that emphasizes discipline, punctuality, and routine. Others insist that educators, if they are to help students maximize their potential, ought to maintain an atmosphere of relative freedom and spontaneity.”Explain your position on the issue of structure versus freedom in an ideal learning environment. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

Some people say that education is best imparted in a desciplined and structured environment, while others say that education should be the product of freedom and spontaneity. This issue, as stated in the passage, is debatable but a closer examination brings out some factors which certainly reveals that education is most effective when the students are allowed to express themselves.

First, it is imperative that students, the recipent of knowledge, should always stay keenly interested to receive that knowledge. there is a very old saying that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'. Hence, the educators should always try and keep a playful environment in their classes or institutes. Seggregating study and play hours will, however, have an adverse effect, as it will make children look forward to the play hours and hence not give attention in the study hours. Indeed, the best solution is to make the very study environment itself full of fun activities, thus encouraging the students to engage in more creative activities through out their study hours. Also, this approach will also stop the students from craving for time separately when they can enjoy themselves. Furthermore, such an environment will also enable the teachers to recognize the strenghts and weaknesses of their students more correctly. The teacher student relationship would be more like friends, and students will be encouraged to share everything with them.

Second, we must keep in mind that we live in an ever changing society. And the rapid change demands rapid adaptations. Although formal education is a must for such adaptations, too much of it can be harmful. Children must be aquanted with diverse situations from their childhood, but without forcing it on them. Thus, the best way to do that is by giving them an flexible educational system. It would enable them to recognize the best way how to deal with various situations and overcome difficulties, which would be a great boon when they grow up. For example, a society would be much more healthy and dynamic if, rather than teaching each oif 100 students to solve a math problem in the same way, educators encourage students to try different methods and adopt the one that suits them best.

Third, and perhaps the most important, is that education is not gained through bookish knowledge only. That sort of knowledge can only take a person upto a certain point, but going beyond would require the personal experience and knowledge of the individual. Since, it is a known fact that children without education have more diverse ideas than grown ups with years of education, letting the former express their ideas is certainly the best way to educate them. For example, Rabindranath Tagore, the famous poet and nobel laureate, is still considered one of the best poet of all time, yet he had not received any formal education as a child. A person can have all the theoritical knowledge about a guitar, but practicing with a guitar will actually enable him to play it.Discipline, routine are virtues that cannot be done without, but they should be allowed to grow in a person naturally, and not forcibly.

To conclude, i would say that although formal education in a disciplined, routine environment does have its own good points, they are certainly outweighed by the approach of imparting education in an informal environment. Thus, i strongly believe that true education can only be given when the students are allowed to express themselves in a free, unbound atmosphere, which will enable them to achive great heights in future.
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Samidh-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Feel free to get in touch if you feel I can be of some assistance to you. You can find me in Facebook if you search!

Re: how much will this analysis of an issue likely to fetch? [#permalink]

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16 Nov 2010, 17:27

Hey Samid,

Great essay - very well organized and well developed. The way you structured it pretty much guarantees you a minimum of a 5: clear introduction and conclusion with great transitions between three support paragraphs. Very easy to read and effective at selling your point.

I'd probably call this a 5.5 - two things that you could pretty easily improve to feel overwhelmingly confident about a 6:

-There were enough grammar/spelling/capitalization errors to notice. It didn't "detract from readability", but was at least noticeable.

-If time permits, you could stand to insert a fifth paragraph before your conclusion that offers a point from the opposition, then counters it. Doing this helps to better hit the exact question stem ("Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree") and helps to sell your point by making it two-sided...you've considered the other side, but ultimately recognized its flaws.

If you have those two things in place I can't imagine how you'd score less than 6, or at an absolute minimum 5.5. As of now, I'd call this a 5.5 and say that you're in great shape heading in to the AWA.
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